Stories of the Autmun Moon

As you may or may not know, this is the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival in China, also known as the Moon Festival. It falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, usually between the second week of September and the second week of September. This year it falls on the 14th of September. I have read that it is the "last festival for the living", but I have not been able to find more on that. If anyone knows something, please post a comment. I have also heard that it is a harvest festival, falling at a time when the harvest is in, all accounts have been settled, and everyone can relax. There are many interesting stories around the Moon Festival. One concerns the "woman in the moon" if you will, named Chang'e. There are several versions of the stories, but this is the one I like best.

Chang'e and her husband, Hou Yi the Archer were immortals living in heaven. One day, the ten sons of the Jade Emperor transformed themselves into suns, and began scorching the Earth. The Jade Emperor was unable to get his sons to stop burning the Earth, so he turned for Hou Yi for help. Hou Yi took up his bow, and shot nine of the sons through the heart, sparing the last son to be the free Sun. The Jade Emporer was angry with Hou Yi's solution, and banished Hou Yi and Chang'e to live on Earth as mortals. Seeing that Chang'e felt extremely miserable over her loss of immortality, Hou Yi decided to journey on a quest to find a solution so that the couple could be immortals again. While on this quest he met the Queen Mother of the West (西王母), who gave him a special pill, but warned him that he and his wife would only need half the pill each to regain immortality. Hou Yi brought the pill home and stored it in a case. He warned Chang'e not to open the case and then left home for a while (go figure). Chang'e became curious about the contents of the case. She opened up the case and found the pill just as Hou Yi was returning home. Nervous that he would catch her discovering the contents of the case, she swallowed the entire pill. She started to float into the sky because of the overdose. Although Houyi wanted to shoot her in order to prevent her from floating further, he could not bear to aim the arrow at her. Chang'e kept on floating until she landed on the moon.

Chang'e is not the only person up there. She has company in the form of the Jade Rabbit and Wu Kang.

In the story of the Jade Rabbit, three fairy sages transformed themselves into pitiful old men and begged for something to eat from a fox, a monkey and a rabbit. The fox and the monkey both had food to give to the old men, but the rabbit, empty-handed, offered his own flesh instead, jumping into a blazing fire to cook himself. The sages were so touched by the rabbit's sacrifice that they let him live in the Moon Palace where he became the Jade Rabbit.

Wu Kang was a bit less noble. He was a bit of a shiftless fellow who changed apprenticeships all the time. One day he decided that he wanted to be an immortal. Wu Kang then went to live in the mountains where he importuned an immortal to teach him. First the immortal taught him about the herbs used to cure sickness, but after three days his characteristic restlessness returned and he asked the immortal to teach him something else. So the immortal to teach him chess, but after a short while Wu Kang's enthusiasm again waned. Next Wu Kang was given the books of immortality to study. Of course, Wu Kang became bored within a few days (sound familiar to all you parents?), and asked if they could take a hourney to some new and exciting place. Fed up with Wu Kang's impatience, the master banished Wu Kang to the Moon Palace telling him that he must cut down a huge cassia tree before he could return to earth. Wu Kang chopped day and night, but the tree (being enchanted),restored itself with each strike of the axe, and so he is up there chopping away still.

Another tradition of the Moon Festival is the eating of moon cakes. I stumbled across an interesting story about the origin of moon cakes that I found appealing. I am not sure how true it is, but it is neat and I will share here:

During the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368), the Mongols ruled China, which did not seem to sit well with the locals. The question became how to coordinate the rebellion without getting caught. With the Moon Festival coming up, the idea was hatched to bake messages containing outlines of the plan into special cakes for the festival. On the night of the festival, the rebels attacked, and it must of been a good plan, because the next thing you know we had the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

I hope you have enjoyed these few stories, and on night of the festival hoist a glass or a moon cake to the full moon with some friend, and think about absent friends who are looking at that same moon somewhere, and in that way, we all will be closer together.